Is there a role for new oral anticoagulants as primary and secondary stroke prevention in atrial fibrillation and intracranial stenosis?

摘要

Ischemic strokes in patients with atrial fibrillation (AF) are due to a variety of mechanisms, and are not necessarily the result of cardiogenic embolism. Due to improvement in imaging technology the detection of extra- and intracranial stenoses is noninvasively possible, and improvements of cardiac monitoring devices have increased the detection rate of previously unknown AF in stroke patients [1]. The coincidence of AF and cerebral atherosclerosis leads to therapeutic considerations as illustrated by the following example.